TracePro® - Optical System Design Tool

Did you know Optical Path Length and Time-of-Flight in TracePro®?

TracePro® offers a powerful Optical Path Length (OPL) and Time-of-Flight (ToF) Plot that allows users to measure the distance and time rays take to travel through an optical system. This feature is indispensable for optimizing performance in systems such as LiDAR, laser range finders, and absorption spectroscopy.

Here’s how the OPL/ToF Plot can enhance your optical system analysis:

• Precise Optical Path Tracking: Measure the exact distance rays travel from a source to a selected surface in your system.
• Time-of-Flight Calculation: Accurately track the time rays take to travel through your system, a critical metric in LiDAR and laser range finder systems for distance measurement.
• Key Role in Spectroscopy: In applications like absorption spectroscopy and multi-pass gas cells, OPL is used to determine the absorption of a sample.
• Comprehensive Data: OPL information is also available in the Incident Ray Table for additional analysis.

The OPL/Time-of-Flight Plot is an essential tool for anyone working with optical systems where precise path length and timing are critical.

Learn more about how TracePro®’s OPL and Time-of-Flight tools can optimize your system’s performance and enhance your designs.

Did you know Path Sorting? 

TracePro® offers a powerful and flexible Path Sorting Tool that allows users to visualize and analyze the different paths rays take to reach selected surfaces in an optical system. This feature is a game-changer for those looking to perform precise stray light analysis or optimize their designs for performance and efficiency.

Here’s how the Path Sort Table can benefit your optical system analysis:

• Detailed Ray Path Tracking: See all the discrete paths rays take through your system, whether it’s a detector, target, or other surfaces.
• Custom Filters for Precise Analysis: Apply filters to view ray paths that interact with specific surfaces or have particular scattering characteristics.
• Graphical and Tabular Displays: View the ray paths either in a tabular format or graphically in the TracePro® model, alongside the Irradiance/Illuminance Map.
• Identify Potential Issues: Sort ray paths by flux to quickly determine if stray light could be problematic for your design.

The Path Sort Table is an essential tool for anyone working on optical system design who needs to understand how rays interact within their system.

Learn more about how TracePro®’s Path Sorting Tool can enhance your designs and improve your system’s performance. 

Did you know Photometric Analysis in TracePro®? 

TracePro® enables you to perform comprehensive photometric analysis, giving you the ability to simulate and evaluate key visible light parameters, such as:

• Luminous Flux: Evaluate the total visible light output of your optical systems.
• Illuminance: Measured in lux, TracePro®’s Irradiance/Illuminance Maps let you assess light distribution over a given area.
• Intensity: TracePro®’s Candela Plots provide insight into light intensity distributions, measured in candela (lumens per steradian).
• Luminance: Critical to what the human eye perceives, luminance is displayed using Luminance Maps and Photorealistic Rendering tools. Luminance is measured in nits (candela per square meter).

These photometric tools are indispensable for designing optical systems, helping you achieve optimal performance in everything from displays to lighting systems. For even deeper analysis, TracePro® offers radiometric equivalents, providing insight into radiant flux, irradiance, radiant intensity, and radiance.

Learn more about how you can take advantage of TracePro®’s advanced photometric capabilities to optimize your optical designs. 

Did you know past installers of TracePro® are available? 

If you have a TracePro® license and need to install a non-current version of TracePro® on a new or different computer, you cand find them on Lambda Website.

Even if your TracePro® license is not currently under maintenance and support, in most cases it is still possible to get an installer for the release of TracePro® you are eligible for.

Currently, past installers are available for TracePro® 7.8.0 and newer.

Did you know TracePro® can model edge and aperture diffraction?

Edge and aperture diffraction occurs when light is partially blocked by an edge and is then bent or diffracted.

The method TracePro® uses for modeling diffraction is asymptotically correct, or, in other words, it is correct for large-angle or wide-angle diffraction.

TracePro® will not show diffraction rings in the Irradiance/Illuminance Maps, but the energy under the curve is correct. TracePro® can model diffraction from lenses and apertures.

When modeling diffraction by an aperture, a dummy object will need to be added to the aperture.

This edge and aperture diffraction capability is available in Standard and Expert Editions of TracePro®. 

Did you know TracePro® can use rayfiles to model light sources?

Rayfiles are an excellent choice for modeling light sources such as LEDs. Rayfiles are available from many LED suppliers. Typically, rayfiles can be downloaded from the LED manufacturer’s website.

Each ray in a rayfile can have a unique starting position, so rayfiles are 3 dimensional models of the output of the light source.

Rayfiles can be easily added to any TracePro® model as a File Source. You can define the starting position for the rays and the direction the rays will travel. File Sources can be moved, rotated, and copied, so creating arrays of File Sources is quick and easy in TracePro®.

There is no limit to the number of File Sources you can use in a TracePro® model. TracePro can import .txt, .dat, .src, and .ray rayfile formats, as well as the newer .tm25ray format. IES and LDT photometric datafiles are also a type of rayfile and can also be used in TracePro®. Please note that IES and LDT files do not contain position data for the rays, so they are point sources and not 3 dimensional sources.

Rayfiles can be used in all editions of TracePro®.

Did you know TracePro® can now model diffractive optical elements, also called DOEs? Diffractive optical elements (DOEs) use diffraction to bend light into multiple orders at precise angles. This allows for compact, lightweight, and innovative solutions to optical design challenges. DOEs can be used in illumination, lithography, biomedical imaging, and many other applications.

TracePro® Standard and Expert editions can now model diffractive optical elements.

Three new Surface Property types are available for modeling DOEs.

• Holographic Optical Element (HOE)
• Computer Generated Hologram (CGH)
• Zernike phase

The Computer-Generated Hologram surface can be Radially symmetric, Asymmetric x-y, or Asymmetric (absolute value). In addition, DOE designs created in OSLO can be opened in TracePro®.

Did you know TracePro®'s Source Builder simplifies custom source creation? With five options, users can swiftly generate custom sources. For instance:

• light source datasheets, like LED datasheets, can be utilized to create new Surface Source Properties with uniform or asymmetric beam patterns
• IES files can be transformed into File Sources and/or Surface Source Properties
• Image Files can be converted to File Sources positioned at the system's pupil
• Non-TracePro® format Rayfiles can be converted to TracePro format
• Additionally, point sources, rectangular sources, and circular sources are readily creatable

The Source Builder is accessible across all TracePro® editions.

Did you know that the Solar Emulator in TracePro® allows users to model the effect of sun tracking for solar collectors and concentrators?. Five options are available:

• None
• Aim to Sun
• Uni-axial
• Uni-axial & Aim to Sun
• A fixed focus with a reflector

The Aim to Sun option will rotate the collector to always face the sun. The Uni-axial option will rotate the collector around a fixed axis. The fixed focus with a reflector will rotate a reflector so that light always reflects from the reflector towards a fixed focal point, such as in a heliostat system.

The Solar Emulator is available in all versions of TracePro®.

Did you know TracePro® features an incredibly powerful Importance Sampling capability?

Importance Sampling is an extremely helpful and useful tool for stray light analysis, as well as many other optical design and analysis challenges.

An example would be off-axis light entering a telescope and scattering off an interior surface and towards the detector. This stray light can cause reduced performance and a degradation in the image produced.

With standard ray tracing methods low probability paths, such as scattered light, may be under sampled and it may be difficult to get accurate results efficiently.

Importance Sampling allows the user to improve the sampling by defining targets that the rays are biased or sampled towards. A key feature of Importance Sampling is that the correct flux is maintained, so even though more rays reach the target, the results are still accurate and can be trusted. Importance Sampling is also much more efficient than simply increasing the number of rays traced, so the task can be done more efficiently and more accurately. Importance Sampling can save you time and money.

Importance Sampling is available in the Standard and Expert editions of TracePro®.

Did you know TracePro® features a photorealistic rendering tool?

Photorealistic Rendering, also known as lit appearance modeling, allows users to see what a light guide, display, or luminaire will look like when it is illuminated. This illumination can be from internal and/or external light sources.

Users can define viewing orientation, quality level, and if external luminance sources will be used. External luminance can be used to see if a display can overcome ambient luminance. There is also an option to show Luminance Maps, so quantitative data is also available.

Photorealistic Rendering is available in all editions of TracePro®. In the TracePro® Standard and Expert editions, Photorealistic Rendering can be combined with Scheme macro programs to easily illustrate multiple viewing angles and/or motion.